The Psychology of Cleansing

Feb 9, 2015 10:23:35 PM

If you've browsed through a health website recently, there's a good chance you'll have come across an article on the benefits of juice cleansing covering the many different ways a cleanse can help you feel better physically. However, what is rarely picked up on is that juice cleansing can also have psychological benefits with long lasting effects that continue to have a positive impact long after the cleanse is finished.

During a juice cleanse, you are giving your body and mind permission to take a break. Most people don't realize how much time they think or stress about their next meal until this is no longer an issue. With a juice cleanse, there is very little or no planning or preparation involved. This is incredibly liberating to an individual's time and energy and related to the condition known as decision fatigue. For instance, it's become a well known anecdote that while President Obama was campaigning, he ate the same meal every day to avoid having to think about what to eat. In the case of a cleanse, all you need to do is follow the order of the juices that have been prepared for you.

2. Food is no longer on a pedestal

Often times, food is placed on an unhealthy pedestal in an individual's lifestyle. In many cases, it consumes people's thinking because they believe they won't get this food again. During juicing, these foods are no longer a priority and the temptation to eat them is considerably easier to handle.

3. Maintaining Commitment

Economic studies show that people who invest in juice cleanses tend to stick with it throughout the duration of the three day cleanse. This is primarily because they have made the investment and they don't want to be wasteful. These studies are based upon how people are at restaurants and, even though they are full, they don't want to throw away their food and be wasteful. Or, when people are in a relationship that is bad, they don't want to end it because they don't want to waste a certain amount of time they have invested.

4. Community Involvement

When those interested in partaking in a three to five day juice cleanse discussed their interested in doing so, they found others in their community shared this desire as well. These others were either already participating in cleansing, or interested in learning more about juice cleansing. Not only does this help individuals feel more psychologically connected, but it gives them the confidence to move forward with their own goals.

5. Achieving your goals

It is often said that the most empowering part of a cleanse is completing it. After all, going without food for 3 days is not a simple task and demands an enormous amount of will power. Interestingly, once you have gone through three days, it then generally becomes easier to continue a longer cleanse as you have reduced your dependence on food and the mental handicap that makes you so reliant eating.

There's also of course no way of cheating and getting away with it. You know whether you completed the cleanse or not, and if you managed to get through it with no cheats, you build the self-confidence that your mind is strong and can achieve anything you put your will towards. So thinking about it in that way, a cleanse is not only the path to good health, but also to success.